Leikr Review

The unique attraction of the Leikr is its huge color display that can show lots of data, a full color map, or some combination of the two. Navigation with the Leikr is great, but it comes up short in a number of other areas. In addition, I'm concerned that if Leikr stops supporting their web site, their watch is pretty useless as it's needed for data upload and configuration. To compound this, Leikr doesn't seem to be actively developing the Leikr or working on a sequel. If you can get one cheap enough, then it might be worth considering, but I'd urge caution and think of this as a discontinued product.

How far did I run? This is the most basic question, and the Leikr has good GPS accuracy. The level of accuracy should be enough for most general running, though it will depend on your course and how precise you need to be.

How fast am I running? Knowing how fast you're running can be a nice to know, or it can be vital for your training or race performance. Because of the nature of GPS, watches that rely on GPS signal alone tend to have serious problems with current pace. When the Leikr has a footpod attached it always displays your current Pace From A Footpod while getting all other data from GPS.

Where am I? The huge, full color display means the Leikr can provide great navigation. It lacks a "back to start" arrow, but you can retrace your steps quite easily on the map using the "breadcrumb trail". This outline is superimposed over the color maps, but because there's no magnetic compass you have to be moving to have any indication of true direction.

What's my cadence? Cadenceis one of the most critical and often overlooked aspects of running. If you get your Cadence right, many other things naturally fall into place. The Leikr supports Cadence via a Footpod, so it's better than nothing, but not up to the options of better devices.

For ultramarathon running the Leikr is pretty useless and is likely to be just enough for a slow marathon. See Watches for Ultrarunning for more details.

1 Leikr Pros

The biggest reason for getting the Leikr is its huge display. It's nearly twice the size and more than twice the resolution of its nearest competitor, the Garmin Epix.

The Leikr will use its huge display to show full color maps. These maps can be downloaded free from the Leikr website, which is a little easier than the slightly convoluted process needed for the Garmin Epix. One lovely feature that makes the maps even more useful is the ability to display data overlaying the map. I've found that having one or two key fields shown to the side of the display works really nicely. By comparison, the Epix will show data or maps, but not the two together.

The Leikr will display your current Pace From A Footpod while getting the distance and average pace GPS, which is ideal. For situations where pacing is critical, such as running a marathon, this is a must have feature.

The display size allows you to view a lot of data (up to six fields), or less data in a large font.

The GPS accuracy of the Leikr is good, though not up to the best available. (See cons for some caveats to this.)

The watch is highly configurable, and configuration is via a web site rather than fiddling with the watch.

Data is uploaded via the Leikr site to Endomondo, MapMyRun, and Strava, and from there it can be exported for use in other tools. However, there is no direct access to the data from the device (see cons below for caveats.)

Data upload from the Leikr is via WiFi rather than a wired connection, which is rather nice.

The display can include graphs of some metrics, though I found them to be of less use than other implementations.

2 Leikr Run Cons

The Leikr is totally dependent on the Leikr website, so if this startup is not successful, you'll end up with a useless device. The web site is used to configure WiFi, configure the watch, and upload data. It would not be hard for the company to add support for data access via USB, as the watch has a USB mass storage mode for bootstrapping WiFi. The company's Facebook and Twitter accounts haven't been updated in a while and the Leikr is no longer available via Amazon.

The Leikr will download a list of GPS satellites for quicker GPS acquisition, but you have to do this within a few hours of starting your run. This is a problem if you have to travel for a run, as the cache is likely to be stale. (I could not find out any details on how long the cache lasts for, and the Leikr site just says "within hours."

I had a number of times when the Leikr would not acquire a satellite lock, even after rebooting.

The battery life of the Leikr is rather poor. They claim 5 hours, and I managed to get 6.5 hours, but that's without using the backlight, map, or pressing any buttons. If you display the map, the battery life is far shorter. (This is true for all devices that show maps, as they require quite a bit of processing power.)

The Leikr is only water resistant to IPX6 which is resistant to jets of water, not immersion.

3 Visual Comparison

Leikr 1 top

Leikr 1 side

Garmin Epix top

Garmin Epix side

Polar V800 top

Polar V800 side

TomTom Cardio Runner top

TomTom Cardio Runner side

Suunto Ambit2 top

Suunto Ambit2 side

Garmin 920XT top

Garmin 920XT side

Garmin 620 top

Garmin 620 side

4 What's Missing

While I don't consider these missing features as 'cons', it's worth understanding the features that are missing compared with other watches.

Altimeter. GPS is far less accurate vertically than horizontally, so a barometric altimeter can provide a much better idea of your ascent and descent. It can also be useful for navigation if you're ascending or descending a mountain. In some races I've been far more interested in how much ascent is left rather than the distance to the top.

Running Dynamics. Some of the newer Garmin watches can show and record Vertical Oscillation (VO) and Ground Contact Time (GCT).

Alerts. Some watches will alert you when a metric is out of range. The alert for Cadence is really useful and one of my favorite features.

Downloadable Apps. Smart watches have got is used to the idea of a device that can be extended with new functionality, and this concept is being introduced to running watches.

Extended battery life. Some porches can extend the battery life by turning the GPS reception off for short periods. This can dramatically reduce GPS accuracy, but it's a useful trade-off for some ultramarathons.

Training Effect. The Firstbeat Training Effect gives you a sense of how hard each workout is, and this sometimes includes the time for recovery.

5 Comparison Table

I evaluate running watches in three distinct ways. Firstly, you can use a watch on its own, without any kind of Footpod. This is probably the most common way runners use their watch, but you miss out on a lot. The second rating is with a standard Footpod that is available quite cheaply. These Footpod's can be reasonably accurate once the calibrated, but calibration is a little tedious. The final evaluation is with the Stryd Footpod, which is vastly more accurate than any other type of Footpod, or and more accurate than GPS. The table below looks at the score, and the value for money of each watch for each of the three conditions. (I’ve also tested the Apple Watch 3, but I’ve not included it in these tables as it’s not really a running watch.)

The score is the sum of how well each watch can answer the four basic questions (how far, how fast, where are you, what's your cadence), plus some bonus points.

The "How far you've run" will be based on GPS only for "without Footpod" and "with Standard Footpod", but based on Stryd if supported in the "with Stryd Footpod" table..

How fast you're running assumes you're using a Footpod if it's supported, otherwise the rating is 0-2 based on GPS accuracy.

The "Where are you?" is based on various navigation features such as back to start, breadcrumbs, and preloaded maps. For some watches, you have to turn GPS off to get the benefit of Stryd, so those watches have worse "where are you scores" with Stryd than without.

The cadence score uses 1 point for an internal cadence sensor, 2 points for footpod support, 1 point for support from chest strap cadence, and 1 point for cadence alerts.

Value for money is the score divided by the price (at the time I last updated the table.) Your needs may be different, so you might weight the different aspects of the watches differently, or be basing your decision on different criteria totally. Hopefully this table will give you a good starting point for your decision.